You just gave away your age! You are obviously much younger than I. If you have ever been exposed to autos from the 70s and older, you will surely know Lucas, "The Prince of Darkness". Some of the old Brit cars, while loved here in the US, had notoriously unreliable electrical systems. Lucas was the manufacturer of many of those components. I have been the owner of four Lotus cars. I became quite good at repairing the unexpected with the older ones. I have gotten out of the crazy car game and now play with classic wooden boats and crash helicopters.

Ah hence the username, ye I'm not quite 30 yet but I aint far of slamming into it faster than a coax heli into a wall in the wind wind!

I didn't know there was the same amount of following for older Uk cars in USA as there is for older USA cars in the UK.

My father has a kit car of the Caterham 7 to build this year, Looking forward to helping him with that now he has his garage extended to have the room to build, I wonder if he will go with this classic paint Scheme.

Ahh, that will be a fun and exhilarating ride! When I was a member of the Lotus Owner's Club, there were lots of Lotus Sevens from series I - IV. There were also lots of Caterhams and Birkins. Birkin was a South African manufacturer of the Seven. The Birkins were sold as turnkey cars and used different variations of a modern Ford engine. Some of them were crazy fast. I believe Caterham is the only one left who still manufacture the Seven. Over here there were also several engine options for the Caterham and if you were a racer, you could get all your heart desired. BTW, I love the BRG livery. It is timeless.

In the old days, you could buy your Lotus in the UK as a "component car" to escape VAT. Over here they were all factory assembled and shipped over unless you bought a gray market kit. Your father will probably remember the Europa and maybe the Type 47. Just a few years ago I had one of each. The 47 was a limited edition (55 built) race car version of the Europa. It was powered with a twin cam Cosworth engine and a Hewland gear box. Some even competed at LeMans! They are very rare and valuable. Most don't change hands often.

When I was a teenager, there was a Ferrari Dino and a Europa Twin Cam in my town. Motor Trend or Road and Track Magazine did a story on mid engine sports cars when I was in high school back in the 70s and it featured the Dino, Europa, Porsche 914, Maserati Bora and even the Fiat X 1/9. Of course that 246 Dino was my dream car but in the late 80s when I had some money, they were out of my reach. I remembered the Europa and found one. I spent lot of money and about 1.5 years restoring it. It had a Gordini cross-flow hemi engine with two side-draft Weber Carbs. I raced it for a couple of years in SCCA and Historic racing events. The Gordini was a 4-cylinder, not a big bad Chrysler Hemi from the 70s. That car was 1500lbs and only 39-inches tall at the roof. The roofline hit me right at the belt. My 47 was a dream car that I actually sold for a nice profit. It was a confidential sale and that's all I can say about that. The two Esprits were fun but boring compared to the two others.

Now back to helicopter talk. My S022 arrived today. I ordered it from Top Toy on 30 Dec and it is in my house right now. Good timing too. I crashed my Solo Pro this morning flying it in my office and did something to the head. I had already ordered new metal head and swash plate for it, so hopefully, I'll have it back in the air. Now, I need to find some room in my house to try out the S022.

Update: I tried removing battery from the copter and batteries from the controller. Put the battery back in the copter, then back in the controller. Hoping this would re-set whatever go screwed up.

Didn't work ... still has a mind of it's own. It even launched itself a good 40 feet in the air .. over a building ... and out into a field about 100 feet away. I had no control over it.

As posted earlier today, I received my S022 in today's mail. I charged it and attempted to fly it in my basement which is a finished space with lots of furniture around. I was not really able to fly it in that space. The main thing is mine takes off just like Scootatrash posted. It happens after it has been in the air. It is kinda scary because I don't know when it is going to happen. I was flying it with the antenna wire wrapped around the landing gear. Maybe that could be the problem.

@KevIW do the heli lights come on? if they are not coming on it could be the power switch.

@Woodyboater Are CB radios popular in your area? I remember in my teens my sister had one and I would borrow it whenever I could, (it's what we had here in Wales before the internet came popular!) I think CB radio is also on 27Mhz and from what I can remember they can be quite powerful.

It seems that Scootatrash and I have the same issue with our S022s. I just received mine yesterday, but it takes off all by itself. Apparently it is a bad PC Board. I bought mine from top toy in China. Have any of you ever had to get any replacement parts for defects from them? I'm sure they'll become deaf, dumb and blind when I ask for a part. I'm sure they'll definitely forget how speak English

Another thing:
Do any of you remove the spring on the throttle stick? I did on my old S107.

I've not removed the spring on my S022, I would not recomend it with your trottle problems, I'm not even sure of I'll use the stock Tx again once I have the DSM2ir upgrade installed. (assuming the PCB fault is the Mhz part the DSM2ir would bypass and cure it, oh I may be getting S022 parts soon, I've picked up a load of S032 and S107 and Sunday I'll be collecting 120 Syma to strip n sell, that tiny screwdriver is gonna kill my fingers!)

Mine always flew fine with the wire wrapped up around the wheels like out of the box, I only had signal trouble when I tried winding around all four wheels, dangling down should give better reception and maybe stop you throttle bursts.

I flew the S022 I purchased in Nov for the first time today.
Flew it indoor real easy and It was experiencing Fly bar strikes in the upper blades. Never had that problem on my older S022 purchased in 2010
When I cut the throttle to zero it kept hovering and I had to increase and then lower the throttle a second time befor it would land.
Played around with the trim but even when it was prefectly trimmed I was getting strikes. Because it was purchased at Christmas time Amazon will accept the return until the end of Jan so I think I will just send it back.
My older one still flys great.